Reflecting On One Year Since The La Mesa Riot

Speaker 1: 00:01 One year after that violent night in Lamesa, uh, look back on how the city has changed and why some are still seeking closure. How much is a reputation worth? Local governments spend millions of public dollars to improve how they're seen online and patients for a major local healthcare provider are warned. Their information was compromised in a month long cyber attack. I'm Claire Tresor and the KPBS Roundtable starts now. Speaker 2: 00:39 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:42 Hello. Welcome to our discussion of this week's top stories. I'm Claire, Tresor joining me on this remote edition of the KPBS round table. Our San Diego union Tribune reporter Alex riggans voice of San Diego reporter. Sophia McGee is Pascoe and KPBS health reporter Matt Hoffman a year ago. At this time, San Diego was dealing with dual crises just as the first wave of the pandemic was cresting videos of violent police encounters from Minneapolis to San Diego county set off a wave of national protests. One of those ended with violence on the night of May 30th in Lamesa when businesses were alluded and a few burned to the ground. A year later, Alex Regan's reporter for the San Diego union Tribune is looking into what has changed and how some in the community are still looking for closure. So, hello, Alex. Welcome. Speaker 3: 01:39 Thank you. Thank you for having me. Speaker 1: 01:40 So the George Floyd case was the dominant story at the time, but just two days after Floyd's death video of a local arrest was also widely circulated. Remind us of what happened to Omari Johnson and what was seen in that video. Sure. Speaker 3: 01:57 So, so two days after Memorial day after what happened in Minneapolis video emerged, uh, here in Lamesa of a white police officer, uh, Matt Degas in a confrontation with a Mari Johnson who was black. Um, basically what happened was the officer accused Johnson of, uh, of smoking at a transit center. Johnson has said that he wasn't, there's no evidence that he was, uh, in the videos. And the other documents that have been released about the incident and Johnson kind of took, took offense to the stop feeling that he was being targeted because he was black. He was waiting for some friends there. Uh, when the friends showed up, they began filming the interaction between the officer and Johnson. And that video was, was what first surfaced the officer's scene, pushing Johnson several times, pushing him down onto a bench. And so, because of what had happened two days earlier, there was just a lot of, a lot of tension around police encounters with black people. So, you know, this, this, this encounter wasn't particularly violent. Although, you know, a lot of people did just say that it pointed out the, you know, the run of the mill discrimination that, that black people do face, right. Speaker 1: 03:04 Just because tensions were already so high. And then, you know, these videos came out and, and so people, people reacted and I know you've reported since then that the, the officer was eventually fired and charged with lying in his report. Have there been any updates since then? Speaker 3: 03:23 So he has some court hearings, uh, later this month, and then there's also the, the civil case against him, which Johnson filed against the city and against him. Um, that one is on pause until there's a resolution of the, of the criminal case, but yeah, officer Degas, former officer Degas is, is charged with a felony for lying on his report. He, you know, he put down in his report that, uh, Johnson had assaulted him, uh, by slapping his, his arm or his hand. You know, the videos that were alert were released, including the body worn camera, video, his own, his own video, uh, you know, never appear to show that, um, that alleged assault. And so, um, he put that in his report. And so he was charged with, uh, with a felony for lying on a report. And then Speaker 1: 04:07 Part of your story for the UTI focuses on Mr. Johnson and how he's reflecting on the past year. And he says he hasn't received closure. So what does he want to see happen? Speaker 3: 04:20 Yeah, so he wants his chance to go to court and to see, um, officer Degas, uh, held accountable for what happened. The charges against him were never filed the police department, you know, cause he had been arrested on, on assault and resisting arrest charges. And the police department decided not to go forward with those charges, not to forward them to the, uh, to the district attorney. So he was never charged in connection to this incident. He doesn't have anything specific in mind, but he does just want to see, uh, kind of the court system or the court case, you know, play itself out in the system. Speaker 1: 04:52 And he says his experience was similar to what a lot of people go through when it comes to racial bias. So how does he want to help share those stories? Speaker 3: 05:03 So one of the things he talked to me about was, uh, wanting to start a podcast, um, where he, you know, he brings people on who've who've had similar experiences, you know, what, he was kind of what he was saying to me was that he doesn't feel like this is a one-off incident. He feels like he's been mistreated before he has many friends, family members who've been, who've been mistreated by police before. And so he wants to share those stories and make it kind of more widely known. He's kind of looking for his voice as a, as an activist. I think, you know, I think he held certain views before this happened, that that haven't changed a lot, but I think he's kind of, he's kind of looking for a way to take what happened to him and kind of build upon it and share some of those stories and become kind of a voice for people who feel marginalized and, and, um, targeted by by police Speaker 1: 05:55 And the LA Mesa police department tried to make changes over the past year. Is there anything different about the way it now interacts with the public? Speaker 3: 06:05 Yeah, so, so one of the main things, they're one of two police departments now in the, in the county, along with San Diego police department who have a mandatory deescalation policy, uh, which means that, uh, when given the chance, I mean obviously they, they don't always have the chance to deescalate a situation. Uh, sometimes it's just hot from the very beginning and they have to do it, they have to do, but when they have the chance to, to try to deescalate a situation, uh, it's required of them to do so. One of the other things that has happened that, that wasn't specifically, you know, within the department, but on the city council was they voted to create a new, uh, civilian oversight board. That board had kind of been in the, in the making before all this happened last year. But when this happened, the city council really chose to kick it into overdrive. So now this, this civilian oversight board in conjunction with a, um, what they call an independent police auditor will now be able to look at situations like, uh, like this one, between Johnson and Degas and decide, you know, if, if the officer acted within policy, if he didn't, um, and then, and then can suggest, uh, you know, discipline, but that's ultimately discipline ultimately falls with the police department. Speaker 1: 07:13 And then the Lamesa village area where the looting took place a year ago has a community feel to it. And volunteers came out to clean up and install murals in the day after. So has the community largely moved on or does anything linger from what happened a year ago? Speaker 3: 07:29 Yeah, so physically, you know, there's, there's the, there were two banks that were burned as well as the, uh, Randall lamb building, which was just kind of around the corner, the lots where the banks were. Um, one of them is still empty. One has been there, they've put up kind of just a temporary kind of shed type thing. The Randall landline is still completely empty. It's just gravel. Um, so those are, those are the kind of the physical, uh, able to see scars, uh, in the city. I think, you know, uh, our east county reporter, Karen Proman, uh, spoke to a lot of, um, business owners and residents, and I think they're still emotional scars as well. There's, there's still a lot of, kind of grappling with what happened, uh, trying to understand, you know, why so many people felt so strongly, uh, the way they did against police or for the black lives matter movement. Speaker 3: 08:20 I still, I think there's still a lot of grappling with that and, and kind of with what happened the night of May 30th and into the 31st, until that morning, ju just kind of trying to wrap their heads around, around what happened and, and if it could happen again, and if the problems have been solved, there was business owners who are, who were quite upset with, uh, with police and fire department also for not, uh, doing more that night to, to protect or save some of the buildings that were alluded and burned. Yeah, there's a lot going on. And I don't think a year later that it's all resolved Speaker 1: 08:52 And I understand you grew up in Lamesa, what's it like covering something like this in an area that you know, so well, Speaker 3: 09:00 Very surreal. Uh, I did grow up here, uh, went to LA Mesa, middle school, went to, uh, helix high school, still live in Lamesa. Um, and a few months, a few months before this protest, I'd been taking my son to story time at the library. And then, um, on Saturday, May 30th, uh, I'm standing near that library as, as people are launching bottles and rocks toward police and Sheriff's deputies and as they're shooting pepper balls and rubber bullets and tear gas back towards us, it was, it was so strange. I, I, I cannot, it still just seems almost like a dream like it was, uh, it was very, very, very surreal, um, experiencing that, but also just hearing the stories of people who've, who've had run ins with, uh, Lamesa police and with other agencies around the county and, and understanding, you know, that there are some, there are some real, uh, true deep seated concerns ha has been really eyeopening as well. Speaker 1: 10:01 Well, Alex, I really appreciate you reporting on this originally when it first happened and continuing to follow it, uh, for the past year. Um, I've been speaking with Alex, Regan's a reporter for the San Diego union Tribune. And thank you, Speaker 3: 10:15 Alex. Thank you, Claire. Thanks for having me, Speaker 1: 10:17 Whether you live in San Diego, north county, east county, or south bay, there's a chance your city is spending an increasing share of public dollars, not on public workers, but on outside public relations agencies, they're hired to perform a wide spectrum of tasks from police recruitment to social media management voices, San Diego found that millions are being spent on these projects. Despite many of these cities having staff that would otherwise handle this kind of work, Sophia Machias Pascoe is the reporter on the story and she joins us this week. Hello Sophia. Speaker 4: 10:52 Hi Claire. Thanks for having me. Yeah, Speaker 1: 10:55 It's great to have you here. So you start with the work one company Loma media is doing with San Diego police. So tell us about that work. Right. Speaker 4: 11:05 So Loma media was hired by the San Diego police department most recently in 2018 for a recruitment campaign for the department, essentially Loma media came in to help create a brand for SDPD and market that brand to potential recruits. And this process included a very strategic and aggressive plan. It used slogans, taglines, paid media campaigns, billboards, social media, television, online ads. So it was a very expansive and an inexpensive project. It was a $350,000 contract between two phases of implementation. And Speaker 1: 11:40 Have they seen a return on that investment? Speaker 4: 11:43 Well, SDPD hasn't told us much about their work with the PR firm, but for Loma media, at least the work was a success. They list their campaign with SDPD as a model on their website. They said they helped SDPB bring in its largest academy class in 25 years. Uh, they also said they directed a record number of recruits to STPs online recruitment website, increasing sessions on the landing page by almost 150%. So if the goal is to attract and bring in more police recruits, it certainly seems like they achieved that. Speaker 1: 12:15 So that's sort of their own tracking, not, not numbers from the police department. So we kind of have to take their word for it on that. Speaker 4: 12:24 Yeah, yeah. That's right. The police department really hasn't said much at all. They kind of just gave us the one sentence response to our requests for information about the kind of work that they did with, uh, Loma medium. Right. Speaker 1: 12:37 And as we've been saying, this has really taken off in recent years, you report that San Diego has spent $15 million in 2020 compared to just half a million in 2011. So where is this extra money coming from? Speaker 4: 12:52 Yeah, so at least for the county, a spokesman told us that ultimately the increase in spending came from a bigger availability of grants that the county uses to fund these PR contracts. As I noted in the story, 14 million of that 15 million spent in 2020 was spent on just one contract under the health and human services agency in San Diego. And that was for a suicide prevention campaign. And the spokesperson told me that these, you know, these types of massive campaigns for mental health or anti-smoking are examples of the primary reasons that the county is spending large amounts of money in single contracts and why they're spending an increased amount of money over the past decade. Speaker 1: 13:32 And then Chula Vista also hired a PR agency to work on a social media campaign to boost tourism. Does the city believe that it was worth Speaker 4: 13:42 It? Yeah, definitely. The city does believe in this type of PR work, the marketing and communications manager for Chulavista and Steinberger said that the city's PR contracts of the years has helped to increase awareness and attention towards Chulavista both on social media platforms and at events and attractions in the city. And like a lot of these PR contracts, Chula Vista got the opportunity to brand itself, to the public. They have hashtags and taglines and promotional videos and a website. And it's helpful to keep in mind that Chula Vista has been trying for years to elevate itself, elevate its reputation from a bedroom community to somewhere that can bring in business and tourism and innovation. And they've tried to achieve this heightened reputation through their police departments, drone program, as we've talked about before. So I think, you know, this combined with what they've done before in the past, I think two of us is a good example of how and why cities are using PR work to boost their reputation. And Speaker 1: 14:39 Then you also described some projects that sound pretty mundane, like publicity for a water utility in Oceanside. Why did the city feel that was necessary? So Speaker 4: 14:50 In city of Oceanside, there are no staff exclusively devoted to communications work. So they already feel understaffed in that sense. And the city also has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of capital improvement projects underway each year and all those projects, which, you know, include water conservation, solid waste and recycling and watershed protection. Those can cause disruptions for residents who live in Oceanside and those residents sometimes have questions or complaints about the work happening. So that's where a PR group can step in to be able to questions from the public, uh, manage disputes and explain the projects that the city is working on. And all of Speaker 1: 15:28 These cities have employees, we should say, who are paid specifically to do communications and PR. So I'm wondering why these outside experts are needed. Is this maybe a story about the evolution of media and how we consume information where government staffers are just not keeping up with new methods of communicating? Speaker 4: 15:49 Yeah, well, I, I definitely think that's part of the story. I mean, yes, the way that the public consume media and information has changed so much just in the last, you know, decade. And I think public agencies have generally been slower to jump onto, you know, social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to be able to reach the public, um, and the new ways that they've been consuming information. But I also think that for some agencies, the work of branding and marketing and social media is a completely different realm than what they consider their work to be, which is communicating directly to the public with service information, internal communication within agencies and organizing press conferences. So, you know, for some communication staff, in some cases, this work is much different than what some PR companies do, which is, you know, editing videos and making posts for social media, developing slogans and all that. So government staffers just feel that they don't have the same access to these types of tools and resources, which is why they say it's more efficient in some cases to hire out the work to PR firms. Speaker 1: 16:54 And do you get the sense in your reporting that this trend will continue? Speaker 4: 16:59 Definitely one official from San Diego county already told us that the county's work with PR firms will continue. And I think the fact that so many of these contracts seem to be smaller, but more regular contracts point to the fact that there's a continued reliance on PR professionals on a day-to-day basis to help the public, uh, help public agencies shape a narrative and brand for themselves. Speaker 1: 17:21 Well, and then there are many other examples in your story for voices, San Diego. So make sure to check that out. Sophia McGee is passcode. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. We're now less than two weeks away from California's full economic reopening. After more than a year of pandemic restrictions, case numbers remain low here in San Diego, and we might even enter the least yellow tier before the tier system goes away completely at the same time. One of our biggest healthcare providers is getting back on track after ransomware sidelined its online portal for nearly a month here with an update on these stories is KPBS health reporter, Matt Hoffman. Hello Matt. Hey Claire. So let's start with the cybersecurity situation at Scripps health over the past month or so. You've been reporting on the hack that disabled, the online platform for patients. So are things back to normal. Now short Speaker 5: 18:23 Answer is no things are not back to normal, but like if you're a patient looking for care, um, it's good to note that their hospitals are open, um, and their urgent care centers. So they want people to go in for care. If you're going in, you might not see any, any changes. I mean, early on when this ransomware attack was first reported, patients were going in and they were having to like fill out, you know, pieces of paper to try to get their medical record or, or to try to get blood tests. We're hearing that some of that's coming back, we know that the electronic health record is back online, but keep in mind, this is about a month after, uh, about a month after being down, patients can log on, log in online and see their healthcare records again. Uh, but script's officials say that they continue to make progress on restoring their systems as safely and as quickly as possible. Speaker 5: 19:03 Keep in mind when this cyber attack was first discovered by script's officials on May 1st, they basically sort of unplugged themselves online. And now they've been doing the tedious process of trying to figure out how they can plug themselves back in online safely. Um, making sure that whatever you know, that these hackers are asking for that. That's another thing too. We don't know. Um, part of this ransomware attack, we know that there's obviously some hackers that have some sort of a data and they're asking for some sort of a payment. We don't know what that is. Script's officials have been pretty tight-lipped on that. And they say that that's in part because they're supporting a federal law enforcement investigation right now. Speaker 1: 19:37 And as part of that, I know you've reported that some private information was compromised. So how is scripts working with the affected patients? Speaker 5: 19:47 Right. So when we talk about how many patients were affected, we're talking about about 150,000 individuals who may have lost their fossil information, 147,000 people. And we know that social security numbers, driver's license information was taken. Um, we also know that financial and health information was taken. Now, script's not going into too many details about what that is. Um, you know, they put out a statement earlier in the week saying at this point, there's no indication that any of this data has been used to commit fraud. Now that's, that doesn't mean that it hasn't happened since. Um, and we know that scripts is going to be providing free credit monitoring and some other services for people that had, um, sort of the, the most financial information taken. Um, and it's also worth noting to Claire that they don't know everything that's been taken. Uh, right now they're going through this really tedious manual process where they're reviewing all the documents, because right now they only know a small scope. Speaker 1: 20:34 And do we know anything about who is behind this or how the situation was ultimately resolved? Speaker 5: 20:42 I will say the situation is still isn't resolved yet. I mean, even though Scripps has access to a lot, their online systems yet we do know that, um, you know, there are other patients that are getting cancer treatments at other healthcare systems. So that tells you that they are not fully back up. And we know that they're still trying to get back up. Um, we don't know a lot about who's behind this, you know, the FBI is not commenting specifically. Um, but they do say that, you know, during cyber attacks, they sort of advise agencies typically, um, before, after and during the process. Um, but yeah, like I said earlier, we, we do not know what these hackers are asking for. We don't know where these hackers are based. Um, we don't know if they're asking for some sort of some sort of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, or we really just don't know. Speaker 1: 21:21 And do we know why it took so long to find a workaround or address the situation? Yeah. Speaker 5: 21:28 Talking to cybersecurity experts, basically they say, you know, when you unplug everything from the online grid, so to speak, you have to go machine by machine to figure out, uh, you know, what, what was taken if this machine has malware in it. Uh, and that can take a really, really, really long time, especially when you're talking about medical equipment that may have older operating software, like, you know, like some old, old windows software. Um, so they're going to have to go machine by machine. And we know that hearing from scripts officials that that's a process that's going to take months. And I Speaker 1: 21:55 Can't even imagine what it's been like for healthcare providers to go through this past year and then have something like this. Right, right. At the end. So have you heard, you know, what, what has been like and what that kind of stress has been like for providers? Speaker 5: 22:10 Yeah. The script CEO, Chris van Gorder, he said it in a letter to patients a couple of times, you know, sort of basically what you just said, you know, we had this big challenge in COVID-19 that they're still obviously working through and then they're, you know, hit again, you know, buckle to the knees, but they said, you know, that this isn't going to stop them and they're going to keep pushing also the script CEO, uh, really thanking employees for, um, you know, he, he sort of said at one point it's, you know, it's one thing to use manual techniques for a couple of days, but to do it for weeks is a whole nother ball game. Speaker 1: 22:36 So then turning to the COVID-19 situation, you've been following the latest here locally. Is there a chance, do you think that the county will reach the least restrictive tier before that system ends later this month? Speaker 5: 22:50 Yeah. You know, there is a really good chance that we could go to the yellow tier. Um, but it might kind of be short-lived because we know, um, in less than two weeks now, the state is planning on fully reopening. Um, and while that yellow tier, you know, may provide some temporary relief for businesses in terms of allowing some more capacity, um, we know that all, all the restrictions are going to be lifted, um, in less than two Speaker 1: 23:09 Weeks. And then vaccine superstations, which were, you know, this big thing at the, at the start of the vaccine rollout. Now they're starting to be phased out. So what's the strategy going forward as the county tries to reach its vaccination goals? Yeah. Speaker 5: 23:23 You know, we, we, we're seeing demand slipping there a few weeks ago. And then we saw, you know, vaccines opened up for those who are 12 and over, and then we saw a little bit of boost and some of those superstations getting, getting more people, but you are right. There's less people going into the super stations. And now sort of a strategy that they've been using in terms of taking the vaccines to where people are going to work places, basically just doubling down on the amount of mobile sites that, that, that the county has just really trying to make it just easy for people. You know, that they think that a lot of people, you know, who are, who are they call young people, you know, 20 to 29, um, where we see some lower vaccination rates. They don't think that they necessarily don't want it. It's just not easy for them to get it. So they want to just be able to, you know, go to their work or have them like when they had some at the airport, people come off the plane, they say, Hey, have you got your vaccine or not? They say, no, they can, boom. Get them right there at Johnson and Johnson don't even have to come back for a second shot. Speaker 1: 24:10 And then you also worked on a story this week about COVID-19 booster shots. So is that something we'll be hearing more about soon? Oh yeah. The, the, Speaker 5: 24:19 The whole booster shot topic is, is definitely not going away. You know, we know that, you know, about 2 million San Diegans have gotten at least their first dose of the COVID vaccine, but we really just don't know yet. Uh, if, if a booster, if a third round of vaccinations is going to be needed, and basically it comes down to two things, talking to infectious disease experts, we don't know exactly how long the immunity from vaccine lasts yet. And basically every month that, you know, they're checking that and extending that out. And then there's a big unknown with the variance. Now we know a lot of these variants that coming out of India coming out of New York, out of California, we know that a lot of the vaccines are covering them, but we don't know how long the vaccines can cover them for. So there's a couple of big unknowns there. Um, but you know, talking to one infectious disease expert, he thinks that there's a 50, 50 chance that come winter. Uh, there, it could be recommended for people to get those booster shots. And it may not be everybody at once. You know, they may not say in the winter, okay, we want everybody to go out there and get the booster. May maybe we want everybody over 65 to get the booster. But the best case scenario is that hopefully the vaccines lasts for about two years and then a booster shot is still a ways away. Speaker 1: 25:19 Well, I imagine that as we get more information about that, uh, you'll keep us updated. Thank you for all of your reporting. And I've been speaking with KPBS health reporter, Matt Hoffman. Thank you, Matt. Thanks Claire. That wraps up this week's edition of the KPBS round table. I'd like to thank my guests, Alex Riggins from the San Diego union Tribune, Sophia Mahias Pascoe from voice of San Diego and Matt Hoffman from KPBS news. If you missed any part of our show, you can listen anytime on the KPBS round table podcast. I'm Claire, sir. Thanks for listening and join us next week on the round table.